//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Parley // Story: A Dragon's Wake // by Cold Spike //------------------------------// The crate that was holding the two dragons was slowly being moved to the bottom of the ship. Spyro began scratching the floor of the crate out of sheer nervousness, though not loudly enough for even Claws to hear him. The crate was being moved gently enough that they didn’t slide along, but the silence was still causing them some concern. Finally, after ten minutes, the crate was lowered down gently and the unicorn in question left in a hurry to get another. "Are we on the ship?" Claws asked. "I think so, but I don't hear any ponies," Spyro said while attempting to remove the top of the crate to peek around. He saw a dark room filled with dozens upon dozens of large crates; a quick smell told Spyro they were all filled with gems. Though it was too dark to to notice anything else, it was unmistakably part of a rather large wooden ship, and that's all that mattered. "Yeah, we are on the ship." "Good! Okay, quickly jump out and go get us some gems to eat," Claws basically commanded. "Why me?" "You're smaller and quieter. You need to hurry, though, once the ship sets sail I'm sure there will be guards down here or something." Spyro sighed and jumped out of the crate. He looked around and noted that he could barely see a thing. He shrugged and felt around for a nearby crate and eventually found one. Feeling around again, he lifted his claw to the top of it and attempted to pry it open, but it wouldn't budge. Spyro turned around and gently knocked on the crate behind him. "What?!" Claws hissed. "The crate's locked or something! I can't get it open." "Well, try harder. And hurry!" Spyro grabbed the top of the other crate and tried again to pry off the top. With quite a bit of exertion, he finally heard it break off with a loud noise that made the two flinch. He looked around quickly and saw no ponies coming to the attention of the noise and sighed in relief. Climbing to the top of the new crate, he looked down and his heart stopped; there were hundreds of gemstones that somehow made the ones in the hoard look… lame. He grabbed as many as he could carry and tossed them gently into the crate where Claws was still sitting. He did the same thing a few more times before giving up and closing the crate as tightly as he could. Climbing back in their box, he sighed and placed the top back on. "Finally, some food!" Claws cheered quietly and started to immediately eat a few gems. "You know, you could say thank you at least," Spyro said, huffing in anger. "No, I'm good. Now start eating; we don't know how long we will have to go without food so… eat!" The serious tone that Claws gave him was all Spyro needed. He grabbed a random gem in the darkness and started nibbling on it slowly. The taste was amazing, at first he thought it tasted like a lemon candy, but that was wrong. The flavor kept changing the more he chewed on it. He ate a few more and so did Claws. They decided it was best to keep the rest for later. So they sat there in silence, occasionally hearing another unicorn pony come by and drop some more crates in the cargo hold. So far, the ship had not set sail. "Claws, why do you think the ponies came here if they aren't welcome?" "Because ponies are greedy and they wanted to steal all the gems off the island." "Do you really think they're evil? How can love and harmony be evil?" Claws stared at him for a while. All Spyro could see of his body where his eyes. After several minutes, Claws spoke. "Spyro, you're weird." "Stop calling me weird!" "Shh! We need to stay quiet. And I can't help it you say weird things." "But you said you were banned from the hoard for being nice, and they made the ponies sound nice." "How do you know? You ever met a pony?" Spyro scratched his head but had a quick comeback. "Have you?" "Well… no, but for now let's just assume that they are bad. We don't wanna get caught." "No, I don't want to be caught, but once we get to their land what do we do?" "What do you mean?" "I mean once the ship sets sail and we, um, dock in their land then what do we do?" Spyro nervously shuffled his claws. "I… guess we didn't think that far ahead, Spyro," he admitted while sighing. "Well, we need to think of a plan. Evil or no, I doubt some random ponies are just gonna invite us into their homes and let us stay." "Right, let me think for a minute." They both went silent again for a while. Occasionally they could hear more crates and occasionally Spyro heard Claws shuffle around to get more comfortable. After a while, Claws decided to voice his ideas. "I got nothing." Spyro facepalmed immediately after hearing his "idea". "Well I can't think of much. I mean, I guess it's possible that the ponies aren't evil which would change things, so to speak." "Right. But we won't know that until we actually meet a pony, and we can't do that until we are off the ship!" "Exactly, so I got nothing." Spyro sighed. "Claws, I'm thirsty." "Well, unless you can mash these gemstones into liquid, I doubt we will be getting water anytime soon." Spyro sighed again and slumped down in the crate. The noise of moving crates had long since stopped. It wasn't until recently that he sensed his growing need for water; he was starting to notice a few other things too. Ever since he woke up on that island, he had felt numb, but now it seemed his dulled senses were returning and so was his dulled mind. It was unnerving how he accepted the fact that he was a dragon so quickly. To any child, this would seem like a dream come true, yet he knew that he didn't used to be a dragon. But whenever he tried to think of his previous life, he only saw vague memories and nothing showed his past self in them, even if he could still think of the memories clearly. He knew that he had grown up in an orphanage until age ten and he knew it wasn't easy or fun. He also clearly knew about stuff from his world while his dragon friend clearly did not. Could that mean that things like tigers and video games didn't exist here? Shuttering at the thought of no video games, he pushed it aside to try and clear his thoughts. He wasn't a stupid child and he had always been quite curious even after getting past that innocent age where he would ask question after question to his caretakers until they were driven crazy. Clearly, ponies could talk here and had magic like in storybooks. But why wasn't he excited to see these things? There he was, on a very large wooden ship surrounded by magical ponies, sitting with another dragon, as a dragon, and he wasn't phased at all. He was far more uncertain than phased, if anything. When the elder dragon had given his story, Spyro was certain that he was insane, but clearly something about the ponies had bothered Claws and, annoying as he was, Claws was still his only friend. Spyro had always been good at trusting others and he wasn't about to stop doing that, so for now being surrounded by ponies that might be evil made him feel uncertain and maybe a bit scared. Instinctively, he moved close to Claws for comfort but stopped when he thought of their sleeping incident earlier, so he slumped back and kept thinking. Thoughts seemed so clear, but the more he thought of his world that was devoid of dragons and mythical ponies, the more they became muddled. It was an odd feeling; if thoughts of his old world popped up randomly they were clear as day, but if Spyro chose to willingly bring up old memories then they became clouded again. Mentally sighing to himself, he decided to clear his mind and focus on the problem at claw. They were in a dark crate and both of them were stowing away on a ship, they had food in the form of gemstones, but they had no liquids or water. Darkness was quickly becoming a theme for the two but so was silence. After twenty minutes of sulking in silence, they finally heard a noise and they felt the whole ship move in a big thrust. They both listened eagerly on the edge of the crate with their ears pressed to the wood. They heard voices saying things like 'move out' and 'set sail for Central Equestria'. They both sighed in relief, glad to be rid of the island. To their relief again, nopony had came down in the storage room after an hour of sailing; apparently there was no reason to. After a while the silence was getting to Spyro. "Hey, Claws?" "What?" "Well, we can't stay in this crate the whole time. Eventually we need to get out and try and find some water." "Yeah I know, but we don't know how many ponies are on this ship. We need to be really careful when we start sneaking around. It's best to wait for nightfall." "Sounds good, but there's kind of a problem with that." "What?" "We don't have watches and there are no windows down here. How do we know when it's night time?" Ignoring the watch comment, Claws replied, "Well I guess after a bit we should get out of the crate and sneak upstairs to check on the time of day. We can sneak back up every once in a while until it's night. After that, we find some water." All Spyro could do was nod at this and wait. After another hour they decided to leave the safety of the crate. They both looked around and saw all the crates and after feeling around, they eventually found some wooden stairs. The stairs led up to a door that barely showed any light behind it. Taking a big gulp and some encouragement from his friend, Spyro walked slowly up the stairs and opened the door to peek outside. He saw a long hallway, but no ponies yet. The hall led to other doors and what he assumed was more stairs. "What do you see?" "A hallway and more doors, but no ponies." "Good. How bright is it?" "Very bright, it's still day time." "Okay, well let's close that door and wait here for a few more hours and check then." After a few hours, the thirst and the silence was starting to get to them. They decided then and there that they would need to start sneaking around the ship in hopes of finding a kitchen or food storage room that held fresh water. After those hours wore out, they both decided to walk up the stairs and leave the safety of the storage room. They tiptoed through the hallways, still not coming into contact with ponies. After a few turns, they finally spotted a pegasus pony, but he seemed oblivious to the two dragons standing behind him. After a few minutes of them hoping he wouldn't turn around, the pony trotted forward, leaving them alone. "Where do you think he's going?" "Well, judging from the time of day, maybe to get some dinner? We should follow him!" "Alright. But let's be careful," Spyro replied. He was certainly nervous, but he couldn't deny that Claws was making sense. They followed the pegasus pony, trailing far behind. After walking a few hallways and climbing two sets of stairs, they noticed more ponies heading in the same direction and started to hear loud noises coming from a mess hall of some sort. Both of them quickly hid behind two barrels and waited for all the other ponies to enter the hall. "Okay, we found where all the food is, but also found all the other ponies. Now what?" Spyro asked, turning to his friend. "I have no idea. We can't just sneak into there, someone is bound to see us. Maybe we can sniff around for a kitchen, someone has to be making this food and it would be easier to sneak in a less populated area." At this, Spyro looked back at Claws, what he said made perfect sense but it made him sound more mature. "Hey, how old are you anyway?" "Nine. Why?" "Uh, no reason. Let's start sniffing." There was actually a big reason. Spyro was ten. It didn't make any sense that a dragon younger than him would be bigger and seem so much older. Then again, he had bigger problems to worry about right now. They sniffed for a while away from the mess hall. Eventually, both of their noses landed on one specific door off in the distance. They peeked inside and saw a few chef ponies busy making food. They walked inside and closed the door behind them. With another sigh of relief, they noticed the two pony chefs were far too busy to notice them walk past. After searching around, they found a pantry room and slipped inside. They found plenty of food and, to their luck, some barrels. After sniffing at the barrels, they felt confused. "This is not water. What's inside?" Spyro said. "I don't know. Definitely not water, but it is something to drink at least." Claws shrugged after saying this and pried open the top of the barrel. Inside, they found a red liquid and, after a few sniffs, they concluded that it at least seemed sweet. Finally, Claws decided to dunk his mouth in and take one large gulp. He immediately began to relax. "Okay, this stuff is good, you need to try it." Claws sounded far more relaxed and slightly more incoherent, but he still sounded like Claws. Shrugging, Spyro decided to follow his lead and take in a few gulps of his own. The drink tasted wonderful. He finally had something to quench his thirst. After one final gulp, he decided to sit down with Claws while they both sighed in content. Spyro felt far more at ease and slightly dazed, but then he snapped back into alertness. "Okay, we got something to drink and now know where it is, we need to get back to the crates." "Yeah you're right. I just wish we could take some of that drink with us." Claws stood up and began muttering to himself, looking around for something to carry the drink in. Spyro looked around the pantry and eventually spotted two smaller barrels made out of wood that seemed empty. "Here, grab one of these barrels and fill it up. If we're lucky we can drag them back without anyone noticing," Spyro said, praising himself for thinking on his feet. Claws and Spyro filled up the two barrels and they again walked past the chefs unnoticed. After some luck and sneaking around some more, they made it back to the storage room down below and shut the door behind them. They slowly dragged the two smaller barrels to their crates and lifted them both inside. After climbing back in, Spyro gently lifted the top back on and they both sighed with relief. "I can't believe that worked. These ponies are so stupid!" Claws was giggling louder than he probably should have for someone who was trying to conceal himself. Spyro only giggled back, relieved that they now had food and liquid. They sat there for a while talking about whatever, sipping more on their new drink and munching on more gems. After a while, an ease began to form between the two with their new drink relaxing their bodies far beyond what they could comprehend. "Hey, Claws?" Spyro said in a slurred voice, sounding very tired. "Wha?" Claws barely responded. They were both slumped on opposite ends of the crate in relaxed states. "Um, when… when we go to sleep tonight, can I sleep with you?" Spyro felt confident in asking this, it just seemed normal to him. "Fine, I guess so." For no reason, Claws smiled back at him and nodded at his request. They knew that sleeping would be required soon and that drink they found was making it harder to stay awake. Spyro nodded at his response, stood up, slowly lay himself down next to Claws, his head resting on Claws' shoulder, and shut his eyes. Claws instinctively did the same back and soon they were fast asleep. However, they failed to notice the top of the crate was not fully in place, and the two barrels they had dragged back with them were, in fact, leaking. "Sir! Somepony appears to have broke into the pantry and stolen some our alcohol. There is a trail leading to the storage room." A rather large earth pony sailor exclaimed, facing the captain of the ship. "What? Well, follow it! I want to know who in their right mind would do something so foalish!" The captain, a pegasus pony, barked out the orders to several other ponies and they soon were following the trail. Three ponies followed the trail of wine into the storage room. One of them, a unicorn, used magic to light the way to the usually dark underbelly of the ship. It didn't take them long to notice that the liquid led them to an obviously opened crate. They all walked up to it and removed the top. Three very loud gasps followed. Inside were the two dragons sleeping with each other, completely unaware of their horrible mistake. "What do we do?" The unicorn pony turned to his shipmates after looking back at the two dragons. One earth pony spoke up, sniffing the air. "I guess we take them to the captain. From the smell of it, they are clearly… drunk. It won't do us any good to try and wake them yet." The unicorn shrugged and enveloped the two smaller bodies in his magic and gently started carrying them back upstairs. They remained sleeping the entire time. The other two ponies followed him in utter confusion. After several minutes, they were in front of the captain's quarters with his door closed. After a few knocks, they heard his voice. "Come in." "Sir, we found the problem… we have some stowaways, sir!" "DRAGONS? What in the holy mother of Celestia…" The captain stopped himself before he said something that he would regret. "Right, leave them here. I will deal with them when they are awake." "Sir? Shouldn't we turn around and send them back?" "NO! We are not turning this ship around for two little dragons. I don't know why they decided to sneak on-board, but clearly they didn't want to be there. Can't say why, but we will find out soon enough." He paused and took a few sniffs. "Still, judging from their age and the smell on their breath, they will not be happy when they wake up!" The captain, always being a dark joker, couldn't help but laugh. The others joined in nervously. "Now, GET OUT!" the captain barked. In a bit of a panic, the ponies followed their order, blindly shutting the door as they ran out of the room. The captain looked at the two dragons, shook his head, grabbed a blanket, draped it over them and left the two sleeping on his desk. Spyro's eyes began to stir several hours later. He immediately regretted that decision as his senses began to slowly return. He had a splitting headache that, coupled with waking up in a strange room, did nothing to ease his mind. He slowly looked around and recognized it as some type of private quarters on the ship with a giant map in the corner and a private desk that both he and Claws were resting on. He saw no ponies, but he knew that they had been caught somehow. Claws was still sound asleep and some nudges did nothing to wake him. The door in front of him opened and closed rapidly causing Spyro to flinch and grab his head for support. His headache had gotten much worse. "Heh, a splitting headache no doubt?" asked a pony with a very deep voice. All Spyro could do was nod slightly and moan in response. "Right. That will get better with time, but I have no concern for your head, dragon." The pony's tone was one of anger, but it held an odd calmness as well. Spyro just stared at him with wonder, taking a specific interest in his wings. "What is your name, dragon?" "S… Spyro." His voice sounded weak and child-like. "And, Spyro, what is it that you and your companion are doing on my ship?" Spyro was now feeling pretty terrible about their plan to sneak on board, but he spoke up. "Um, me and Claws here… well, we are banished from the dragon hoard, so we sneaked on-board so we could, um, live?" "And what caused you both to be banished?" The captain was now speaking with a sincere voice, but still one that demanded respect. "Claws was banned for being nice." This statement caused the captains eyebrow to raise but he let Spyro continue. "And I was banned for questioning the elder dragon, I guess." "Questioning?" "Yeah, he told this story about how the ponies lived in love and harmony and were evil and it didn't make any sense. How can love be bad? So I questioned it and I got banned." After speaking, Spyro smiled sheepishly back at the captain. "Hmm, I don't see how those things can be bad either. So you two decided to sneak on board because you thought you could survive better with the ponies than being on that island?" the captain questioned with his full curiosity. Spyro simply nodded his head. The captain started to laugh. It was powerful and caused Spyro to grab his ears out of fear for his headache getting worse. "Well, I suppose that is brilliant in its own right, but that still leaves us with a few problems, Spyro." "Problems?" "Quite. For one, we now have two young dragons on-board, illegally, which means I will have to do some paperwork and report them to the princess." He paused and waited for the words to sink in and when Spyro said nothing, he continued. "And now I need to think of what to do with you until we get back to Equestria and then you meet her." His words echoed in Spyro's soul. Her. He definitely meant the princess, but he failed to mention what kind of princess she was. "Is she nice?" "I should think so. Otherwise I would be out of a job." He laughed again causing Spyro to flinch but laugh out of sheer nervousness back. "Right, it will be a good two weeks before the ship ends up in her—" "TWO WEEKS?!" Spyro spoke out so loudly that it caused Claws to wake up slowly. "Yes. Two weeks is the standard sailing rate on this ship. Why does this alarm you?" "Spyro? What's going on?" Claws spoke up, looking around with his right claw massaging his scalp for comfort. "Do you at least have video games so we don't get bored?" Spyro said the statement so plainly for such a foreign word to both the other dragon and the captain. "Video games? I beg your pardon, but I do not know what you mean." "You have never heard of video games?" Spyro turned his head to the captain and back to his friend, Claws. Claws was really confused at this point but simply shook his head not knowing what he meant. The captain did the same. "No Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo or even arcades?" Each word he spoke sounded higher than the last. And with each phrase, the captain only looked more and more confused. Spyro had to pause and think for a minute. What else hadn't they heard of? "Excuse me, but have you, um…" "Captain Sailing Winds, Spyro." "Excuse me, Captain Winds, but have you ever heard of a television?" Again, Spyro got the same response from both of them, two shakes of their heads and confused looks. "Ever heard of electricity?" Claws shook his head, but the captain responded this time. "Yes, back in Equestria we have a few things powered by it, but I'm afraid nothing on this ship. I wonder how is it that a dragon who has lived on that island his whole life knows about it." "I just… do." Spyro paused and continued. "So no such thing as a television or video games?" Spyro stood up on the captain's desk and waited for the answer that he already knew. "I'm afraid not. Since I have never heard of this I would imagine they don't exist in Equestria, but judging from, uhh, your friend over here, I would imagine he has never seen these things either." Spyro had to grab his head. He felt dizzy for a few reasons. First, the realization dawned on him that this new world he was thrust into had no video games or modern comforts that he was used to. Second, the same dizziness that he felt back on the island was returning. Video games had always been his life back at the orphanage; they comforted him and brought him into other worlds, but now that he was literally in another world he simply wanted it to end. The dizziness finally stopped and all he could do was say one thing. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Spyro sounded like a child throwing a tantrum. He felt angry. "What is the matter with you?" Claws walked up to him, attempting to calm him down. "How can video games not exist here? And television? And how can you live like that?" Each question seemed more comical than the last; not only did the captain and his friend have no idea what he was talking about, but they both felt uneasy from his outburst. "Listen to me, Spyro, on this ship you will both follow my lead and obey my rules. For one, I want no further outbursts from you like you just did. I have no clue what video games are, or for that matter, television, but it sounds to me like an addiction of some sort. Now if you would please calm down and listen to me, both of you." Spyro simply nodded and took in some deep breaths like before. He wasn't sure why he got so angry so quickly. Ever since he got his new body, it was like being a young child again; outbursts were commonplace now and difficult to control. His emotions were now the most difficult thing to manage and being in a new body wasn't helping things any. "Now then, you are both under the authority and rule of Princess Celestia's Naval Command. Technically, you are prisoners now, but being so young, I cannot treat you as such." "How did we get caught anyway?" Claws said, relieved that Spyro had stopped screaming. "The wine you stole was leaking into the crate that you stowed away in," the captain said, laughing to himself. "We drank wine? We are too young for that!" Spyro said. "Quite. I'm surprised you even know what wine is. But regardless there will be no more for each of you." "We just wanted something to drink, sorry," Spyro said, smiling sheepishly. "I must say, you are quite polite for a dragon, but for now, don't worry about it. We need to find you two a room to stay in and some food and I guess a guard to keep you under control." The captain said sternly. "You want us to spend two weeks in a room with nothing to do?" Spyro said sternly. "Well, if you're good I will let you see the ship, but at least for tonight, yes." And with that, the Captain stood up and told them to stay put in his quarters until further notice. The door slammed shut again, leaving them alone. "I can't believe we got caught and I let you sleep next to me again," Claws said, grabbing his head. He looked like he was in pain. "Well, it could have been worse." "What's worse than this?!" He practically yelled, but winced in pain and stopped, lowering his voice. "They could have killed us or something. He said in two weeks we will see their princess though, it doesn't sound like a death sentence to me." Spyro stood up and crossed his hands in a smug triumph. "You don't know that; for all we know their princess is just as crazy as the elder dragon!" "I dunno, but we don't have much choice unless you can fight, like, a million ponies with your fire when we get there. Otherwise, we're stuck," Spyro said dismissively as he got off the table to look around. Claws, being taken aback by his statement, had no choice but to shrug and do the same. After ten minutes of looking around the captain's quarters, they both came to one realization; they were bored. There wasn't much to look at other than the massive map in the back that showed them Equestria and all the land markers. Spyro had to stifle a giggle at the mention of a pony town named Ponyville. After another five minutes of sitting there, the door swung open revealing Captain Sailing Wind. "Right, you two follow me," the captain said, waiting for them to obey. They followed him to a less secluded spot on the ship. All around them, the sailor ponies had to stop and stare at the two new dragons on-board. Eventually, they found a room with two guards out in front who had orders to not let them out under any circumstances. Inside was a spare room with two beds large enough for adult ponies and some books in a rather plain-looking room. Before the captain left them for the night, Spyro felt he had to ask something out of curiosity. "Excuse me, Captain?" "Yes, what is it, Spyro?" The captain said, turning around to face the young dragon. He was smiling while Spyro just looked as curious as ever. "How come you were on that island anyway? It said clearly all over the place that ponies were not welcome so… it just seems weird," Spyro said, stammering the entire time like a lost child asking a question that he knew that kids shouldn't ask. "Hmm, Princess Celestia had ordered us to sail here and do our best to chart out the island. Occasionally, a crew is sent to your dragon islands to do this, but we usually come up empty-hooved. We cannot venture too far for risk of angering the other dragons." "So why do it then?" "For the gemstones, of course. The island is full of them and they can be quite valuable. Speaking of which, I will have some sent to your new room, but we cannot have you both eating our entire supply, so you will both have to get used to pony food," the captain said, leaving them in the room and shutting the door behind him. They both shrugged and decided to call it a night. It was getting late and they weren't in need of any food or water, plus, Spyro remembered what the captain said; if they behaved, they would get to see the rest of the ship. So Spyro climbed into his new bed and let the darkness take him for the night.